In a web-fed rotary printing press, a web of material is fed from a roll stand, through an infeed, then through one or more printing units, a dryer, and a chill roll stand before being cut into a plurality of ribbons by a slitter mechanism. The ribbons, in turn, are fed through an angle bar section, and then into a cutting/folding cylinder section of a folder.
When a web is initially fed through the press (called "web-up"), it is fed sequentially from the roll stand through to the folder. This process generally involves two people manually feeding the web through each component of the press system up to the entrance of the slitter mechanism. Once the web reaches the slitter mechanism; additional personnel are required to process the ribbons, e.g. two additional people per ribbon.
The web-up process is therefore slowed because the web must be first fed through the printing units prior to being fed into the dryer, and must be fed through the dryer and chill unit prior to being fed through the slitter. Moreover, once the web is cut into multiple ribbons by the slitter, additional personnel are needed to process the multiple ribbons. Since the web-up process adversely affects productivity by causing significant down-time for the printing press, a need exists to reduce the time required for web-up.